Unscheduled

Marathon Oil Corp. blamed higher-than-expected exploration expenses and unscheduled downtime for a 38% decline in quarterly profit from a year ago; however, the producer is stepping up its exploration spending this year — with most of the money directed at U.S. assets.

Southern Natural Gas reported experiencing an unscheduled outage Friday morning at Gate 6 offshore Louisiana. Some production was shut in as a result, but based on the best information available, Southern said it would try to keep markets whole for Friday’s gas day. Damage assessment is under way, the pipeline added.

Citing a pipeline leak, Gulf South said Wednesday it will begin an estimated 12 hours of unscheduled maintenance on its Index 129 segment at Mile Post 44 south of the Edna Compressor Station effective with the start of Thursday’s gas day. Five points south of Edna will be required to shut in during this work. “To the extent firm service is interrupted, Gulf South will be claiming force majeure for as long as service cannot be performed due to the maintenance activity,” the pipeline said.

CenterPoint said Monday a restriction on deliveries to Columbia Gulf/Perryville (South) due to unscheduled maintenance at Delhi Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, March 27) was no longer in effect.

Southern Natural Gas said Tuesday it had completed repairs for the unscheduled outage experienced over the weekend on its north mainline system in Alabama near the Calhoun Power delivery point (see Daily GPI, April 11). Nominations to Calhoun Power are being accepted again.

Southern Natural Gas reported experiencing an unscheduled outage on its 14-inch diameter Chattanooga Branch Line near the Alabama/Georgia border Monday. Personnel were isolating the line so that repairs can be made Wednesday. To prepare for the outage, Southern said Tuesday it was making system adjustments to support the current level of scheduled firm and no-notice service. See the bulletin board for details.

Florida Gas Transmission said Friday it is performing unscheduled maintenance on one of the two units at Compressor Station #3 in Port Lavaca, TX. The outage is expected to last through Sept. 15. During this work FGT will schedule up to about 160,000 MMBtu/d through the station. During normal operations it schedules up to 230,000 MMBtu/d. The reduction took effect Saturday.

From Thursday through Monday Iroquois will be performing unscheduled maintenance at the Dover station, during which the compressor unit will be out of service. The pipeline said it will make repairs to the exhaust duct and corresponding modifications at the manufacturer’s request to obtain greater reliability for the unit. No due-shipper imbalance gas will be available south of Athens, Iroquois said, but the work should not impact firm transportation.

Sea Robin began unscheduled maintenance Tuesday at East Cameron 265; it is expected to last through Wednesday. Operators upstream of Vermilion 149 could experience lower pressures and pressure fluctuations as a result. Deciding to conduct other work in conjunction with the East Cameron 265 project, Sea Robin plans to perform annual maintenance at the onshore Erath (LA) Compressor Station and pigging from Vermilion 149 to the onshore Devon processing plant on Wednesday and Thursday, which could lower daily pressures downstream of Erath and will reduce capacity at the Sea Robin-Trunkline interconnect. The East Cameron work has been postponed three times since early May (see Daily GPI, May 6).